I've started freelance consulting. I want to ask an old colleague to join as a fellow freelance consultant. How?

Question

I've incorporated as a solo freelance consultant. I have 1 client at 20 hours/week. My marketing plan is through content-marketing via a technical blog.

I'd like to ask an old coworker to join as a freelance consultant so we can work together. I'm certain the 1 client I'm working with would hire him (as they are trying to hire 1 or 2 more people in a niche field), so I'd like to ask if he wants to join me.

I'm leaning towards suggesting my coworker incorporate as his own business. We can both contribute to the technical blog together if he would like.

Questions:

1) I'm leaning toward suggesting he incorporate as his own freelance consultant company instead of us splitting the one I started. Does that make sense?

2) If we both contribute to a content-marketing blog, how would we split the client work? I guess we would need to figure that out ourselves?

3) If he doesn't contribute to the marketing blog, and I bring in all the work, how much or should I take a % of pay for projects he works on?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Why don't you hire him instead of "showing" him your clients and connecting him to them? This way you can earn a bit from his work. And of course, suffer negative consequences in case of troubles.

This seems like a lot of work and questions for all good things you will provide to your colleague: start his business, get a client immediately, gain reputation, earn money from start,...

The result of this are the questions you asked which all arose from the fact that you do not want to hire him as a worker , but insisting on him starting his own business.

Lastly, there is an option you outsource the work to him and take some percent from this work. This is good option if the work is not long-term and hiring him would not be an option.